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Eve Valkyrie trailer will make you lose your cool; sign up for the pre-alpha now

Eve Valkyrie Fanfest 2015

We’ve all known for a while that Eve Valkrie – the VR dogfighting game set in the Eve Online universe – was pretty special, but the latest trailer shown off at Eve Fanfest 2015 in Iceland really does confirm it. If you love yourself a good set of spaceships, direct your eyes this way and leave a suitable amount of space below your head for jaw-drop. 

As you can see, Eve Valyrie is filled with spaceships, chases, astonishing manoeuvres, and massive ship-bursting lasers. The trailer is uncut footage from one of Valkrie’s single-player missions, which will have a story to follow about how the Valkyrie unit was formed. These solo offline missions work as tutorials, which lead into the bulk of the game which is dogfighting multiplayer.

If you’re into the Eve universe, you’ll be able to discover the whole origin story of Valkyrie in a series of comics published by Dark Horse. But your character will be more than present in the game; you’re not just a helmet strapped into a fighter ship. “She can’t be wandering around like Judge Dredd the whole time,” said executive producer Owen O’Brien at Fanfest.

The sectors of space explored in the solo missions are also revisited in some multiplayer maps, although after the events you played alone. Necropolis is a map that’s filled with the dead ships that succumbed in a battle you previously engaged in. “I like the fact that it gives the map some history and depth – this is where you died,” said O’Brien.

Oh yeah, that: your Valkyrie pilot is dead. Like a Cylon Raider from Battlestar Galactica, you’ll die and fly again and again. Your appearance suggests a ghostly, wraith-like quality, too. “It’s got menace to it. I wanted her to look ethereal but project danger and power, almost like an angel of death character. I’m very proud of [her] – she’s not a stereotypical game character,” said O’Brien.

“You are with [her] at various key moments in her life, and death.”

If you’re more than eager to start playing Eve Valkyrie, now’s the time to sign up to the pre-alpha. You’ll need an Oculus Rift DK2 headset and a beefy PC to play, but you can still register interest even if you don’t have the required set-up.